Indian Tea Party

I remember in junior school my science teacher taught us that tea contain “nicotine” and its not good for health ,being an obedient student I stick to my teacher’s advice.Now It’s been more than 20 years and sometimes I wonder how can someone stick to an advice for such a long time however I don’t have any control on my family who consumes nicotine at least three time a day ,though I am banished from that daily ritual, but still i enjoy rest of the snacks .

 No wonder why tea consumption is more in Indian when we see tea statistics. India gives highest percentage of share (more than 30%) in producing tea in
entire world and still dominating world tea market over last 150 year. We  have around more than thousand tea brand available in India.
Tea culture is around us since the time of Ramayana we can find many references in epic scripts . India is having very rich social culture and we all have seen growing it on every tea party or party with tea. Now tea party is become part of our culture and people do the rituals of social gathering at least twice a day with their friends or family. It is hard to find people who can think of the starting day without sharing tea with friends or family.
In earlier days people use to invite their friend and relatives to their home on afternoon tea party, In those days getting a tea party invitation was kind of social honour .Host use to spare lot of time to decided and prepared different verities of Indian snacks to serve along with tea. People use to spend many hours during tea party. Kids use to play games while their parents involved in various discussion starting from marriage proposal to business deals, and from planning summer holidays to economy , sometimes people invite guest to show their music or stamp collection or to show their recently purchased imported radio, TV or VCR set ,people also use to exchange books ,music records, audio cassette even we can see the mark of tea party culture on many old Bollywood music as well.

Today world is moving so fast and we are struggling to get time for our self and our family, our classical tea culture is lost in this fast pace life and new hybrid culture took its place. Now tea party invitation is no more social honour, we prefer to meet often on café day ,coffee joints or canteen near to our work place ,classical snakes has been replaced with sandwiches, cake slices, buns, rolls, and cookies .Now we always carrying our own personalize music system(Mobile, iPods) with us and we exchange music files. we can go on long list on this.

As we say change is good and it is a part of life, cultures will keep on evolving. Old traditions will be replaced by new customs over the period of time. No matter either we go to modern cafe or visit to our neighbour’s house, as long as the feeling and the intention is remain the same to meet our friends and spend good quality time with tea.

By : Dharmesh Patel